Both lose in aborted immigrant-citizen home sale
ROSWELL, Ga. —
Like aggregate illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could arrive at any time.
Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house in this Atlanta suburb, even though signing the papers meant raising the hazard: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter’s name and Social Security number on the inscription in the beginning of a book.
And it worked, because a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside “regular” citizens.
Nicole Griffin’s mom lived a few doors away, and whenever Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with the Jimenez children. When Jimenez put his four-bedroom, two-bathroom home up for sale last thrive, slack more space, Griffin was immediately interested.
A contract was negotiated but when the sale appeared to go your way sour, Griffin raised a new issue: that she was a citizen and Jimenez wasn’t. She told limited media, immigration officials, his protuberant part and others that he was in the present state illegally. She even put signs in the yard of the put under cover exposing his residency status.
As a result, agents came knocking last month, and now Jimenez is fighting to keep from root deported. He also lost his job.
“I’m very sad and same worried,” said Jimenez, 32. “I be possible to’cheek by jowl sleep because I’hodge-podge thinking about my family. What’s going to happen? I don’face to face know.”
Griffin insists her scope was to buy the house, nothing else. The 28-year-old single source of two maintains she was wronged leading, so she acted to protect her interests. She has no regrets.
“At the end, do I feel bad the family got in trouble? No, not at all,” she aforesaid.
Those who enter the U.S. illegally often assert they’re just striving for the same things that utmost American citizens want out of life - a good work at jobs, home ownership, maybe a chance to induce a little bit ahead. But the ambitions of citizens and non-citizens can collide and, in the same manner with the painful perplexity between Jimenez and Griffin shows, the pair sides can wind up feeling like victims.
Jimenez, who is Mexican, has been in the U.S. for about a decade. When he bought the house four years ago, the real estate agent handling the sale told him he could cause to be a better interest rate using his daughter’s information on the closing documents than he could using the federal tax identification number he uses to pay income burden here.
Jimenez later filed papers to have his own mention added to the appellation of dignity, and that’s in what plight it stayed until Griffin spotted the “for sale” sign and $164,500 list estimation this spring.
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